Streak ends, but Meyer will roll

Buckeyes are in a good place, despite title game defeat

Dec. 10, 2013

Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio is congratulated by Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer following the Big Ten Conference championship NCAA college football game Saturday Dec. 7, 2013, in Indianapolis. Michigan State defeated Ohio State 34-24. (AP Photo/AJ Mast) / AP

Written by

CentralOhio.com

Larry Phillips

So Urban Meyer is human after all. The guy really can lose a football game.

Who would’ve thought such a thing?

Certainly not Ohio State football fans, who have grown accustomed to Meyer mashing every foe in his path.

Incredibly, the Ashtabula product did just that, until Saturday night in Indianapolis. Yet after digesting the unthinkable, that even a Jim Bollman-fueled offense could chew up a Luke Fickell-led defense, we are left with the residue of a Buckeye loss.

That it happened in a championship game, with a ticket to the national title contest on the line, made it even tougher to fathom.

But after a moment to choke back the shock, it’s far easier to accept. Meyer has turned in an incredible job.

The two-time national champion at Florida inherited a train wreck upon arriving in Columbus.

The Buckeyes were coming off a 6-7 season, saddled with the loss of three scholarships in each of his first three years thanks to what the NCAA deemed as repeated dishonest behavior by Jim Tressel, and were banned from all postseason play last fall.

How did Meyer respond to this mess?

In just three months he turned around an average at-best recruiting class into a nationally-rated top 5 group. He hired a gem in offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Tom Herman, moved assistant Stan Drayton back to running backs coach where he belongs, and brought in offensive line coach Ed Warriner, probably the best hire at that position in at least 20 years, maybe more.

That crew, with little more than quarterback Braxton Miller as a consistent offensive weapon, went about the business of outscoring every opponent in their first campaign.

In fact, only the postseason ban kept OSU from the 2012 Big Ten championship game (the Buckeyes beat both title game participants) and a date against Notre Dame in what would’ve been an incredibly winnable national championship game.

This year it was more of the same. The offense set school records for scoring and ranked among the national leaders in rushing offense, too. It fed high hopes and grandiose plans.

But Ohio State could not overcome a troubling defense. Watching the Buckeyes down the stretch, virtually every punt was in danger of becoming as catastrophic as a turnover. The defense was simply helpless to stop anyone.

Championship teams just don’t have defenses that bad.

Meyer and Co. covered for it with offensive brilliance. But in retrospect it was probably better to fall short to Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook in a tight loss than to be destroyed by near-certain Heisman winner Jameis Winston on a national championship stage.

In point of fact, the Buckeyes and the Big Ten in general are still sporting a public black eye from being outclassed first by Meyer and then by LSU in Tressel’s national championship poundings from 2006 and 2007.

Adding to that list of destruction would’ve been crippling for the conference and Ohio State. It will be tough enough for OSU to weather the Orange Bowl storm that Clemson, star quarterback Taj Boyd and super receiver Sammy Watkins will surely bring on Jan. 3.

With Miller returning at quarterback, hard to imagine he’s even on a draft board after his passing stats in the last four games, the Buckeyes have a strong starting point in 2014. Meyer’s recruiting classes will begin funneling through the system after that, and Ohio State should be off and running or passing and consistently scoring.

Maybe it’s still early yet, but somewhere down the line we’ll look back on this 24-game winning streak and truly appreciate what Meyer and Co. have done.

The Buckeyes are in an outstanding place. They have the right coach at the right place in his career at just the right time.

There will be unexpected losses along the way, there always are. But Ohio State is set up to be one of the nation’s elite programs going forward, and that’s the way it should be.

Larry Phillips is the sports editor for the Media Network of Central Ohio. He can be reached at lbphillips@nncogannett.com or at 419-521-7238.